Saturday, August 4, 2018

2018-08-04 Escudilla Mtn.

Today’s summit is a repeat of my Thanksgiving
summit. This should count since the new
year ticked over. I decided to do a
video blog.... And then forgot the gopro.

Last time I only had 5 watts. Today I brought the FT-891 that should be
putting out 100 watts. The band
conditions were difficult and at the end, a thunderstorm to the south east of
me made hearing anything very difficult.
On the plus side, the trek up to 11,800 feet was no problem and I’m
surprised how quickly I recovered.The trek up to the lookout and activation zone was easy. The trail is in good condition and I think I had to step over one fallen tree. I was actually surprised that I wasn't gasping, given that I was at 10,000+ feet. I guess the cycling to work is doing me some good. The rains start the first week in July so it's very green up here. It's a heck of a lot more pleasant than the brown you get prior to the monsoons arriving.

I first setup the 20 meter packtenna dipole
and tied it off with ropes to a tree and the fence (then moved off the fence to
a tree to get it up higher. I had
difficulty hearing and the SWR was about 2 to 1. It was at 15’ off the ground but it probably
needed to go higher. I got 16 contacts
and then setup the CHA MPAS .
It wasn’t any better so after logging a contact I decided to exfil from the
area of operations. There was a storm
moving in and the thunderstorm to the south east of me was making it really
hard to hear a complete call sign.

The trip back to the car was easy enough. At one point I got some light hail but I
didn’t get that wet. Not enough to
really warrant putting on the rain cover.

There is no recording today since I used the
phone to capture call signs.

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Chris Claborne is incredibly curious about technology, people and the world and is always trying to understand how things work. He's a "Technology Geek". The internet is fascinating place to learn, interact and watch from a technology perspective. He has 23+ years in IT for Fortune 500 companies and a specific interests in Cloud Computing.
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